Damian Lillard Says He Won’t Play ‘Meaningless’ Games If Portland Can’t Make The Playoffs…And He Has A Good Point

SI – “If we come back and they’re just like, ‘We’re adding a few games to finish the regular season,’ and they’re throwing us out there for meaningless games and we don’t have a true opportunity to get into the playoffs, I’m going to be with my team because I’m a part of the team,” [Damian] Lillard told Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes. “But I’m not going to be participating. I’m telling you that right now. And you can put that shit in there.

“If we come back and I don’t have an opportunity to make the playoffs, I will show up to work, I’ll be at practice and I’ll be with my team,” he added. “I’m going to do all that shit and then I’m going to be sitting right on that bench during the games.”

Lillard did say that he would play if the league set up a possible tournament or play-in between the No. 7 and No. 12 seeds for the final playoff spots. It has not yet been determined whether the rest of the regular season will be played out or if the league decides to jump directly into the playoffs.

The full Yahoo interview with Chris Haynes is here but the point from Damian Lillard is clear: He wants a shot at the title. And you would expect that from most of those teams on the cusp of the playoffs. Teams like the Warriors or Cavs likely care more about getting to the offseason and a fresh start next year. But if you’re a team like Portland who started slow and was just 3 1/2 games out of the eighth seed, it makes sense they’d want to keep their hopes alive.

And that’s even more true in this particular setup where now there are rumors of a World Cup group stage style format for Round 1 of the NBA playoffs. NBA Twitter has talked at length about how “this team deserves an asterisk if they win a title.” But forget about the Lakers or Bucks types of squads who were favorites to win this all before COVID-19 submarined the schedule. Remember the last time we had an “asterisk” type of season? You know who made the NBA Finals or, hell, the final four in the 1999 lockout-shortened season?

The Knicks, Pacers, Spurs and TRAIL BLAZERS, aka the Four Horsemen of NBA Parity (for the time). Now I’m not saying that Portland has some magic horse shoe in asterisk seasons. But the point is that anything can happen. I mean, the Knicks of all teams were the feel-good story of the playoffs amidst a March Madness-style Cinderella run as the No. 8 seed.

With a Trail Blazers team that has good rim protection and rebounding as well as two extremely streaky high-level shooters in Lillard and C.J. McCollum (and a complete dart throw in the likely washed-up but maybe not Carmelo Anthony), they’re just as capable of a magical run here as any team in the mix. And, more importantly, a chance at an “asterisk” NBA Championship is probably their most realistic chance to win one in a conference with LeBron and Anthony Davis as well as Paul George and Kawhi Leonard.

So why risk injury if you’re not given a genuine chance to see the season to its conclusion? Portland may have slacked for stretches of the regular season but they’re a dangerous team for this kind of format. Lillard in particular has some political clout as a near-A-list NBA star and McCollum is a part of the NBAPA governance so give it your best shot. And if we end up with a Portland NBA Championship, you can’t knock the hustle for the con job they pulled off to weasel their way back into the mix. A vintage Eddie Guerrero style move by Portland, “If you ain’t cheatin, you ain’t tryin.” The power move by Lillard is basically the equivalent of this: